When the husband-and-wife chef team Beverly Kim and John Clark took over the now-defunct Bonsoirée in 2012, they fulfilled a dream of working together on a Korean-inspired modern restaurant. Unfortunately, the dream lasted only a few months there, and Bonsoirée closed.
After a year-plus deferral, they’re leaping back into their restaurant-ownership dream, and if you leap, you need a Parachute (3500 N. Elston Ave., Avondale, no phone yet). The 40-seat, liquor-licensed, Korean-American-perspective restaurant is scheduled to open in April.
Kim and Clark say the food will pull together traditional Korean flavors with new and creative ones. “Reminiscent of familiar traditional flavors, but presented in a new creative way,” Kim says. As an example, they offer a crispy mung bean pancake with pork belly, black garlic, and kimchi. The menu breaks down into snacks in the $4 to $7 range, appetizers such as crudos or salads, rice and noodles, and larger plates intended for sharing and costing between $18 and $25.
They also plan a program of breads from Asia. “We have actually mastered . . . well, we’re happy with some recipes we have adapted,” Clark says, modestly. He says they will probably start with Chinese bing bread, a yeast-based, spiraled, pan-fried bread, which they will flavor with potato, bacon, and green onions and serve with a sour-cream butter, as sort of a baked-potato bread.
We didn’t ask them about any kind of plans for expansion, but you know, skydivers do always pack a second parachute.